More People Read Our Blog Yesterday Than Attended the Marlins Game

Walkoff Walk commenter Matt_T called it and the Baseball Think Factory Newsblog confirmed it. The Braves/Marlins game was seen by fewer people than the number of folks who read our blog yesterday. Yes, a professional baseball game between two non-contending (albeit talented) teams was outdrawn by some dope live-glogging a Mets-Brewers game he was listening to on the radio.

Sure, it was 91 degrees and 99% humidity under the glaring sun in a stadium built for football in a city where there are approximately 25,700 better things to do on a Wednesday afternoon, but still...

Hanley Ramirez homered and doubled to lead the Florida Marlins past the Atlanta Braves 5-3 Wednesday in front of an incredibly sparse crowd of just 600 fans.

Fewer than 600 people were in Dolphin Stadium's bright orange and aqua seats for the first pitch, leaving most of them to reflect the afternoon sun. While the official attendance, based on tickets sold, was 11,211, the ballpark was so quiet that home-plate chatter could be heard.

In fact, the attendance at Dolphin Stadium was lower than the pageviews for this sissy The Hills liveblog. You and I probably saw more than 600 people going about our regular everyday lives yesterday, working and shopping and commuting. And heck, I don't even live in the Big City like some of you do. In fact, don't MLB stadiums employ well over 600 people per game to sell peanuts, clean bathrooms, and take tickets? (Oh who am I kidding, nobody ever cleans those turlets) So that means there might have been more people being paid to be at that game (employees, media, actual baseball players) than those paying to be at that game.

At that point, shouldn't the Marlins just forfeit and take everyone out for an emparedado cubano?

It's a pretty simple equation, really: the stadium is out in the butt-fuck middle of nowhere, about a 40-minute cab ride from South Beach, and is simply godawful for the viewing of baseball. I used to go all the time and it's the biggest pain in the ass ever... even if I were a hardcore Marlins fan living in Miami, I'd see no reason to go to all that trouble for a ballgame when I could sit in a bar on Ocean Drive and drink while watching it on a flatscreen.

Actually, no, I'd probably still go to a lot of games. But I'm a fruit. Build a new goddamn stadium, Jeffrey Loria. CALL IT SHRIMP STADIUM!!

The stadium is also less than 20 minutes away from huge population centers in Broward County. Yes the stadium sucks but it's not the location. In fact, when they move south, the new location won't be the draw, it will be the new stadium.

I still think the smart move would have been moving it even further north into the heart of Broward, near where the Panthers play. That team suuuucks and draws every night.

I READ WOW YESTERDAY AND ALSO ATTENDED THE BALLGAME INFACT I BROUGHT MY LAPTOP TO THE BALLPARK AND SHOWED MY TEAMMATES MY COMMENTS. THEY SAID MY HUMOR IS BATTING A THOUSAND EVEN THOUGH I AM ONLY HITTING 400.